David Tagoe
21 December 2011
Ghana Football Association president, Kwesi Nyantakyi believes midfielder Andre Ayew merits the CAF African Footballer of the Year Award. The 22-year-old is among five footballers shortlisted by the Confederation of Africa Football to contest for the coveted prize.
Ayew has been in scintillating form in the French Ligue 1 helping Olympique Marseille through to the knock stages of the UEFA Champions League. He faces stiffer competition from Senegal’s Moussa Sow, Yaya Toure of Ivory Coast, Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o and Mali’s Seidou Keita.
But Nyantakyi believes Andre Ayew has done enough to merit the crown. “The choices are done by the national team coaches and that is where the difficulty is and once that is done, CAF has no hand at all in determining who wins the award.
“On merit I believe our player Andre Ayew deserves to win and we hope he will win based on his contributions to the Black Stars and his current performance at Olympique Marseille.
“As a young player, his achievements are noteworthy and more so, he is the only Ghanaian among the short-listed players”, Nyantakyi observed
Ayew was last Friday named the BBC African Footballer of the Year, a day shy of his 22nd birthday.
AllAfrica – All the Time